It was a small room and we all sat on the floor- leaving our shoes at the door. The students had notebooks and Bibles and listened attentively to what we said. Robin and I opened the day with a story and discussion questions. We had prepared basically the day before- since we haven’t had our storying training yet, we didn’t know exactly what to do- but Karsten said later that we did a good job, so I guess that’s good! We then spent the morning discussing what storying is and what type of stories are important.
The afternoon was my favorite part of the day! First, we hung out with the students- helping them make food for dinner, and listening to them talk with each other and just ‘hung out’ with them. I really enjoyed that, as it reminded me of my Indian friends at home. These were Christian students, though- my age. From various backgrounds – some only having been following Him for a few months.
The second part of the afternoon was also amazing and one of the most encouraging things that have happened since I’ve been here. We had the students pick one of the stories from the list they made earlier and begin to work on it. They were divided into their specific language groups (Hindi, Kahani, and two other lang. groups I can’t remember). They had to read the story from the Bible three times, then one person retell it to the group, while they listened. Then another person would retell it. After they finished retelling it, then they would go back and check the story with the Bible and then go around and retell it once again. It was amazing to watch them and listen to them tell stories. They were very animated and into telling the stories. One guy went around to anyone he could find to tell his story to- even if they didn’t speak his language! He just wanted to share his story!
Watching the students tell stories, I wanted to cry. It was as if we were doing exactly what we came to do- and had trained others to do it. Our two year mission was complete in a day! Here are natural story-tellers ready to go out in the villages and share Jesus! Okay, maybe not quite yet. But they all learned the stories easily and really enjoyed telling the them. I asked them afterwards if they enjoyed it and found it easy or difficult. They said they liked the stories very much and found them easy to learn.
It was such an encouragement to me to be a part of that experience with them and to help them- even though I didn’t know much myself! I truly hope that they will learn more stories and use them to share with others. Lord, may one or more of them even become our storytellers in the villages.
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